This application relates generally to handheld computer devices and more specifically to a framework for handheld computer devices used in the health care industry.
In the health care industry, health care providers have become increasingly dependent on the use of computer systems and software to keep track of all aspects of patient data, including clinical, administrative and billing information. In the mid-1990's, CCOW (Clinical Context Object Workgroup) was developed to help aid health care providers manage patient data. The CCOW standard, now the ANSI approved Health Level 7 Context Management Standard version 1.4, establishes the basis for ensuring secure and consistent access to patient information from heterogeneous sources through synchronizing and coordinating applications—such as those used for patient registration, order entry and results reporting—so that they instinctively follow a specific context, including the identity of a user, a patient or a specific clinical observation. CCOW-compliant applications coordinate with each other via a behind-the-scenes context manager that enables them to work together in ways that behave like a single system from the health care provider's perspective.
In more recent years, health care providers have begun to use handheld computing devices and software, such as that offered by PatientKeeper, Inc., to keep track of patient data. The PatientKeeper systems are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/356,543, titled “Device for Automating Billing Reimbursement,” by inventors Matthew D. Barnhart, Stephen S. Hau, Yuri Ostrovsky and MinPont Chien, filed on Jul. 19, 1999 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/356,751, titled “System for Automating Billing Reimbursement,” by inventors Matthew D. Barnhart, Stephen S. Hau, Patrick McCormick, George A. Madrid, Craig A. Fields and Sanjay S. Vakil, filed on Jul. 19, 1999, the teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference.
In a typical health care environment, a hospital, for example, doctors will carry a handheld device with them as they treat patients. As tests are performed, diagnoses made, and treatment administered, a doctor can note all of the activity in the handheld device. After seeing several patients, the doctor then synchronizes the handheld device with a server which is connected to the hospital's main computer network. All patient data collected in the handheld is then uploaded to the hospital's main information system and at the same time, any patient data in the main system which has been updated since the last synchronization can be downloaded to the handheld device.